1. Helping your son/daughter to make the best of their final year at Scalby School.
November 28th 2017

2. Why are the Pre-Public examinations important?
They provide information for college and apprenticeship references.
They provide information to teachers that may decide on the tier of paper students sit in the Summer.
They provide information for parents.
They will provide students with examination experience and practice.
If revision is undertaken properly, it will provide a good basis of knowledge for the Summer examinations.

3. Learning time after the January PPE exams until the GCSEs begin in May.
13 weeks 54 days

4. How much revision time?
A minimum one hour a night on school nights, homework permitting.
At least three 2/3 hour sessions at weekends.
Revision throughout the Christmas break apart from:
First weekend
Christmas Day and Boxing day
New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day

5. Scalby School Pre Public Examination programme December and January 2017

6. When do the PPEs take place?
GCSE Maths PPEs
GCSE French Speaking
1st , 4th and 5th December
Week commencing 11th December

7. When do the PPEs take place?
All other subjects
8th January to 19th January 2018

8. Do all subjects have a PPE?
There is no PPE in these subjects
GCSE Art and Design
GCSE Textiles
GCSE Resistant Materials

9. When do students receive their results?
PPE Results Celebration – 31st January 2018
Copies of results posted to parents
Year 11 Parents Evening – 1st February 2018
Appointment sheets sent to parents 8th January 2018
Parents can make appointments up to noon on 1st February

10. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
Parental support is 8 times more important in determining a child’s academic success than social class.
You are here

11. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
To make a real difference:
You don’t need to be an expert in all their subjects
You don’t need to give up your life and responsibilities
You just need to spend the time you have in the best way

12. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
Attendance is key If they are at school, they are in lessons They can attend intervention after school They can be given homework – which they need to do! ½ a day a week off = 1 GCSE grade Last week 37 Year 11 students had ½ a day off or more

13. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
All students are different
Some are better at organising themselves than others
That is where you come in –
Support Encouragement Interest

14. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
Agree a balance
Stick to the agreement but be flexible
They can fall behind or lose motivation – don’t berate or threaten them
Talk through the issues, acknowledge their feelings
Use the 80/20 rule
Teenagers are often all or nothing ‘catastrophic’ approach

15. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
Revision should already be underway – the sooner they start the less they will have to do each day, the less they will be
Stick to start and finish times
Provide plenty of breaks and
healthy snacks
Provide plenty of water

16. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
Shelve the battles that don’t need winning just yet
Help prepare you child for the exam – talk with them about when it starts, how long it lasts for, what are the main topics that might come up.
Don’t ‘over egg’ this – they may have worked all day and have come down stairs to relax

17. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
The BIGGEST mistake students make is not allowing enough time for revision. They then get demotivated as the task seems too big If they tell you they have left it too late – It is never too late – until they enter the exam room

18. Parent/carer guide to surviving GCSE’s
Before the exams

19. GCSE Mathematics Pearson-Edexcel Specification 1MA1
3 exams, each 1 hour 30 minutes
Paper 1 – Non calculator - May 24th
Paper 2 – Calculator – June 7th
Paper 3 – Calculator – June 12th

20. Key Points to successfully passing at grade 4 or higher
Plan regular times across the week to revise by completing as many exam questions as possible (PPE’s this Friday so should be seeing this happening already!)
Use a memory aid technique to learn all the facts and formulae needed for the exams e.g. Leitner card system
Learn your calculator keys well
Attend regular revision with your class teacher (Starts again w/c 29th January 2018)

21. An examiner’s experience
Check answers are reasonable
Show working e.g. if a question requires a formula write it down first
Recognise key words e.g. show that, explain, compare, is David right?
On calculator papers use them even for what seems the simplest of calculations e.g. time question adding 102 minutes to 6.45 p.m. and getting 8.28 p.m.

22. The exams Language Literature Paper ONE (2 hours)
Macbeth
Poetry Anthology
Paper TWO(2 hours 30 mins) mins
A Christmas Carol
‘Modern’ prose or play
Unseen Poetry
Paper ONE (1 hour 45 mins)
Extract from a 20th C novel
Narrative Writing
Paper TWO (2 hours)
TWO non-fiction articles (one 19th C and on 21st)
Two pieces of ‘writing for purpose.’
PPEs in January and March

23. Help! Every lesson counts! Revision guides for English Language
Revision guides for English Literature
Snow Day booklets! (‘Snooklets’)
Weekly homework. This IS revision.
Intervention on Tuesdays
Nearer to the examinations, we will also provide extra sample past papers as soon as they become available.
Remember, your teacher wants to help!
E. Granger …
S. Dowey …
E. Vickers …
C. Jones …
H.Pegg
Help!

24. Writing ideas… Write a letter to Father Christmas.
Write a short story.
Why not write to granny thanking her, at last, for that super jumper she gave you at Christmas or to the local council complaining about the two weekly bin collection?
Write to Theresa May to persuade her to change the voting system so that 16 year olds can vote.
Show off by using sophisticated punctuation. What about challenging yourself to use a semi-colon on Facebook, ellipses on Instagram and embedded clauses in your texts?
Get yourself a dictionary. Spike Milligan read a page from his dictionary everyday; he was a superb writer. This is a great way to improve your vocabulary.

25. Reading ideas…
READ – anything! Remember, Paper TWO uses non-fiction and media texts so READ newspapers, magazines, autobiographies, film reviews…
Test yourself- you could even find your own articles and write your own questions.
Re-read those Literature texts.
Get yourself some Post-It-Notes and mark important chapters, quotes and extracts.
Did I say READ?

26. AQA Science GCSEs Three things to do:
Revision Guides – from the prep room (£2.75 or £5.50) learn the key facts and ideas.
The AQA exam board website for specimen papers
Proper exam technique: read carefully – answer as much as you can. Think – What is this like?

29. The first part of the question said:
“ Fish live in water. They have gills to take in oxygen from the water. The gills have a large surface area.”

31. GCSE
Specification Code
Biology
Paper 1/2
Chemistry
Physics
Combined Science
8464
1 h 15m each
8461
1 h 45 m each
8462
8463

32. GCSE Combined Science
Biology topics
Chemistry topics
Physics topics
Paper 1
1-4
1-5
Paper 2
5-7
6-10

33. GCSE Triple Science
Biology GCSE topics
Chemistry GCSE topics
Physics GCSE topics
Paper 1
1-4
1-5
Paper 2
5-7
6-10
5-8